


Seeking Answers

by Tsukino_Akume



Series: Ruigi [4]
Category: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers Samurai
Genre: Child Neglect, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-04-05 03:37:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4164264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsukino_Akume/pseuds/Tsukino_Akume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aisha confronts some old demons - namely Ji.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeking Answers

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer/:** If it was mine, the slash would be canon. Or at least confirmed canon. Because Antonio and Jayden leaving for a fishing trip together holding hands would have made the finale perfect.  
>  **Warnings/:** Discussion of Child Abuse and Child Neglect  
>  **Author's Notes/:** Aisha demanded the opportunity to confront Ji. She was *supposed* to bring up Antonio too but she sort of ... didn't. This whole conversation didn't go the way I'd thought it would, actually ... 
> 
> I feel like Ji deserves a side for this conversation, but writing him is actually really hard for me. If I can manage it, I may add it as another side story.

She stared at the kitchen door, taking a deep breath to steel her nerves. _You can do this, girl. Just play it cool, keep your temper. Remember, he`s not the enemy here._

She shoved the part of her sneering _Yes, he is_ as deep as it would go. 

Ji looked up as she walked in. She tried not to be offended at the resigned look that came over his face. "Dr. Campbell," he greeted, giving a polite nod. 

"Hello, Ji," she returned just as politely. "I think we need to talk, don't you?" 

He nodded again. "Outside, perhaps?" 

She shook her head. "The kids are training out there. They don't need to hear this." 

"I suppose not." He stood, gesturing to one of the stools at the table. "Tea?" 

She wasn't much of a tea drinker, but she nodded anyway. Adam would have wanted her to accept; it would have been rude not to. "Thank you." 

She waited for him to make it, watching the quiet way he moved around the kitchen. He had the graceful movements of a fighter, but from what the boys had told her, he had raised Lauren alone, and spent his days taking care of the Rangers. "Did you fight?" she asked abruptly. 

He paused. "Not as a Samurai Ranger," he said after a moment. 

She nodded, accepting that. "I was a Ranger," she admitted, trying to ignore the chill that still ran down her spine every time she broke the rule she'd sworn to Zordon so long ago. "So I'm going to be honest with you: part of this comes from that. But a whole heck of a lot of what I'm about to say comes from being a mother." 

Ji turned to face her, folding his arms with a neutral expression. "And what is that?" 

She considered him for a moment, trying to decide where to start. "I'll be the first to admit I've had to make some horrible decisions," she said finally, trying not to remember _ice cold in her hands like she was nothing nothersnothersnothers_ , "I've also made a lot of stupid decisions that I wish I could take back. But I honestly cannot understand how someone can not only send away their child, but to send them - to send that perfect, sweet little boy to - to _him_? To - " 

"I assure you, Dr. Campbell," Ji interrupted, his voice hard and cold, "The decision to send Jayden away was not so easily made." 

"That's not the part bothers me, actually," she snapped back. It was, because she would never, ever, ever be able to imagine voluntarily sending any of her babies away like that, let alone for _training_. But that wasn't what she needed to understand right now. "Jayden told us his father *chose* that - that man, to be the one to send him with." 

Ji stilled. "He did," he acknowledged finally. 

Her fists clenched in her lap. She had to take a breath through her nose to stop herself from screaming. 

"When I met Jayden, he didn't talk unless you asked him a direct question. He never spoke up when he wanted or needed something, no matter what it was or how many times we told him it was okay. He never wanted to go out and play, never went near any other kids unless they came to him first, and even then he had no idea how to interact with them. Antonio told us we had to give him orders, because he wasn't used to having a choice. He had no idea how to think for himself. He was _nine_." She looked up at Ji, fingernails digging into her palms and tears in her eyes. "And you're telling me he was sent with that man on _purpose_?!" 

The kettle started to whistle. 

She closed her eyes as Ji stiffly turned to finish their tea, trying to reign herself back in. Years of watching Jayden grow had helped, encouraging him to talk to Ashley and do silly things with Antonio, and spending every waking moment showing him that he was loved and wanted, that the things he wanted were important to them. She knew he wasn't that broken, lost little boy she'd met at Trini's funeral anymore. 

But there was still a lot of that little boy made up in the man she knew now. In the way he apologized for everything, worked harder than anyone asked or needed him to, and looked cautiously surprised and delighted to be included in things or rewarded. In the way he outright _panicked_ if he was apart from Antonio for more than a few hours, and saw his panic attacks as a sign of weakness. And it broke her heart every time. 

"Tell me," she said softly, "That you didn't know what he would do to Jayden." 

Ji stopped, staring at the steam rising from the tea pot for what felt like hours. "Toshizo Tanba was known to train strong Samurai warriors," he said finally. "He was chosen as the best candidate to ensure Jayden's training was a success. It was decided that the methods he chose would be at his discretion. A - Jayden's father, agreed that he was too close to his son to be objective." 

_Absolution by omission_ , she thought grimly, feeling ill. "And you know... " 

Ji swallowed. It was the first visible sign of discomfort she'd seen from him. "There is much the Rangers do not tell me. But I am aware that Jayden's time with Toshizo was not what we would have wished it be." 

_How can you stand there like that's an acceptable answer?_ she wanted to demand. _How can you just let it go? Do you *really* understand what he did to Jayden? Or do you treat Lauren the same way?_

She prayed she was wrong. She wasn't sure she could leave her babies here alone if she wasn't. 

"And Lauren?" 

Ji frowned at her. "I'm not certain what you're referring to." 

She forced another breath. "Was Lauren trained the same way?" 

Ji went rigid. 

A moment passed before he finally answered her. His voice was tight, his jaw clenched. "I have raised Lauren in the manner benefiting her station as the 18th Lady of the House of Shiba." 

_Like a princess,_ she surmised with a combination of relief and pity. _Distant and perfect. Not a little girl who needed to be loved._

No wonder Lauren had run when she'd tried to hug her; poor girl probably had no idea what to do with that kind of affection. 

It didn't take away the lingering feeling of hurt from when Lauren had run away, but it helped. 

"Thank you," she said finally. "For being honest with me." 

"As a scion of the Shiba family, I can do no less," he replied tersely. 

She wasn't so sure about that, considering her less than stellar opinion of the Shiba family - not including Lauren, obviously - but she nodded. 

The silence lingered. 

A cup appeared in front of her. She nodded again in thanks, watching the steam. Ji returned to leaning against the counter, frowning down at his own tea. 

"I understand, needing to use every resource you have to win," she said slowly. "I know that kind of desperation. It's ... hard to make those decisions. But I don't think I'll ever understand how this family could put either of those kids in that situation. They deserved better, Ji." 

He let out a long sigh. "On that, at least, we agree." 

It wasn't the response she'd hoped for, and she still had to reign in the urge to scream at him. It didn't explain away years of cuddling a sad little boy who didn't know how to accept affection, who was terrified to get close to anyone. It didn't erase Kimberly crying on her shoulder because Jayden had called home to ask Jason what was wrong with him. It didn't make any of it okay, knowing that it wasn't supposed to happen this way. 

What had she been trying to accomplish here again? 

"And now it is my turn to ask you a question, Dr. Campbell." 

She looked up into Ji's narrowed eyes. "Hmm?" 

"What concern is Lauren of yours?" 

She stared at him blankly. _Is he serious?_

"Are you serious?" she repeated, and the question didn't sound any less ridiculous aloud. "How is Lauren *not* my concern? How are any of these kids not my concern?" 

She shook her head as he continued to watch her suspiciously. "How - I raised Antonio and Jayden. Me and everyone else who loves those boys. Lauren is my son's sister, that makes her one of my kids. Emily shares my Color and Mike shares my spirit animal, that makes them mine. They're all Rangers and so was I, that makes them mine. I'm a doctor and they're my patients, that makes them mine. I'm a mother, and these kids need someone to love them so badly they're practically screaming it, *that* makes them mine." She stood up, glaring back at him. "They are _mine_. End of story." 

Ji looked at her coolly. "And where have you been while yours have suffered, lying in bed recovering from their battle wounds? Where were you when they struggled, when they lost faith?" 

"I trusted them to be okay," she snapped back. Because they had to be. Rangers always were. 

Ji nodded, glancing downward briefly before meeting her eyes. "And when Serena died? Where were you then?" 

Her breath caught. 

Serena Tamashi's soul was stolen the morning of June 2nd, 2011. The Samurai Rangers had fought for her, fought with everything they had, but ultimately, she never woke up. 

There had been a lab accident at S.P.D. late in the morning on May 30th. During an experiment to create a set of morphers for a new Ranger team, the morphers hadn't been strong enough. An explosion of energy from a crack in the Morphin Grid had covered the room, knocking eighteen people unconscious. 

She'd been in a coma the day Serena died. 

She could have told him where she was that day. That she woke up two weeks later and was bedridden for even longer, while Ashley and Dana ran test after test on her to make absolutely _sure_ Rocky and Adam's baby was okay. That by the time she'd been strong enough to stand on her own, that horrible feeling that something was wrong was long gone. 

That she had cried for hours after the boys had told them about the daughter she'd never know. That she laid fresh flowers for her at the Ranger Memorial Wall each time the last bouquet wilted. That she would never, ever stop feeling guilty because she wasn't there. 

But she didn't. 

She lifted her chin, forcing herself to meet his eyes. "I wasn't there," she said evenly. "And that will haunt me for the rest of my life." 

He nodded once. "Then perhaps, it seems we may understand one another after all." 

Her throat felt tight. "Maybe we do." 

It didn't make anything better. It didn't answer for Jayden's suffering or absolve the Shiba family of all they'd done. It wasn't a hint as to a way to find understanding with Lauren. It didn't change the fact that she didn't trust Ji any more than Antonio and Jayden did. 

It was an answer. And really, that was the best she could ask for. 

They finished their tea in silence.


End file.
